


Mission: Smile

by Mushaloons



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Can this be classified as Major Character Death or no, F/M, Pidge | Katie Holt Angst, Pidge's dad is dead, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), crapfic, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-03-31 05:56:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13968798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mushaloons/pseuds/Mushaloons
Summary: Keith knew what it felt like to lose someone he loved. That's why he made it his mission to make Pidge smile again. Only...he's not so good at it.





	Mission: Smile

Keith knew how it felt to lose someone they loved. That's why he made it his mission to get Pidge to smile again.

It started three weeks ago, after Pidge had first found out her father was dead. At first, she didn't believe it, repeatedly saying with an ever-growing strained smile, "Rule 1 of movies. When there's no body, they're still alive." Matt tried to agree with her, but deep down both of them knew the truth. Then the fucking Galra just had to mail his body back the day Pidge finally had decided to leave her lab. Keith never thought he could resent his own flesh and blood more. 

Now Pidge stayed in her lab every day, only leaving whenever called for missions and even then she never spoke a single word. Matt, on the other hand, just started lashing out more. It surprised the rest of the paladins, especially Shiro, as he was usually the more level-headed of the two. Then again nothing was the same nowadays. 

He walked around a corner, and found himself face to face with an extremely fatigued Lance. Tears, either from lack of sleep or emotional, stained his face. Keith opened his mouth to fight whatever was coming next, but the other paladin just walked right around him without a word. He watched as Lance almost did the same to Hunk, but instead of hugging it out and laughing, they kind of sidestepped each other and continued trudging down their respective paths. Seemed like everyone was on edge today.

Keith past the dining hall, and despite being at least 100 feet away from the other entrance, he could hear Shiro and Allura arguing. Only this time there was no immediate apologies. It was almost as if Shiro was still a clone. "Whatever," he muttered, closing the door behind him. This was just so...wrong. When it was him radiating this atmosphere, it made sense since well, he wasn't exactly a ray of sunshine like Hunk, but the death of Sam Holt plus the ever-growing mountain of stress everyone was having seemed to not just be frustrating but damaging. But how would he stop it? Not like he could automatically make everyone happy again-

Something-or some _one_ -ran straight into him, causing both to topple over. “Watch where you’re going!” He snapped, then immediately regretted it. Because the person he ran into was the last person he wanted to yell at. ”Shit, I’m so sorry Pidge I did-“ 

She cut him off. "I-it's fine." Her voice was shaky as she scrambled to pick up her files. "Want any help with that?" He asked.

Pidge didn't look up as she picked up the rest of the papers and got up. "No thanks, it's fine. Sorry for bumping into you." Keith only watched as the younger paladin raced past him without a word. It hurt to see her in so much pain, but he didn't know how-

That's it. He was going to make her smile again, a genuine smile. Even if it meant him getting humiliated or worse. 

* * *

The first time he tried was when he used Lance’s jokes. Bad idea.  _Very_ bad idea. It happened in Green’s hangar. 

“Sup Pidge.”

”Hey Keith.”

“Whatcha doing?”

”Fixing Green.” 

“Cool."

"Yeah..."

"Hey did anyone ever tell you you’re pretty purr-fect?”

”Uh thanks? I’m really not-”

"Stop lion-g, you’re awesome.”

”...are you okay?” She peered down at him. “Since when did you joke that much? And pretty badly as well.” 

“I’m fine,” He said, drawing out the i a little longer than normal. “Just-“

”What the hell are you doing near my sister?”

Keith had no idea what he was doing at this point. Nor did he notice the angry rebel fighter about to kill him. “Just talking, why?”

This only caused Matt to get annoyed and almost punch him, but even that didn't offer up the slightest twitch from Pidge.

Reminder to self: Never borrow jokes from Lance. Especially if he’s currently not himself at the moment.

* * *

 

Pidge was having a pretty decent day for once since the news. Hunk had finally managed to make good cookies out of Altean ingredients (with help from Coran, of course), Shiro and Allura had let them take an off-day thanks to the lack of Galra around, and Keith had been acting sort-of weird, but today he didn't even try anything stupid to amuse her, thank God. But Lance didn't seem very talkative today. He seemed...off. Thankfully she didn't have anything to do later that day, so she decided to go check on the blue paladin.

He wasn't in his room. 

Pidge checked the kitchen, but only Hunk was there. She checked the training deck, but he wasn't there either. Not in the hangar either. She groaned in frustration. Where the hell could he be? Whatever, she could talk to him during dinner. After all, she did need a shower...

When she past Red's hangar, a gloved hand reached out and yanked her inside. "Whomp-" 

She whipped around to look at her-what was it? Kidnapper? Yeah, she'll just stick to that-kidnapper. "Jesus Keith, what the hell do you want-" Pidge froze, and her eyes shot up to look at the display in front of her. "Holy shit."

Red was currently on the...roof. The roof. Doing acrobatics. Why the fuck were there sparklers? WHERE DID THE SPARKLERS COME FROM? WHO'S FLIPPING THEM?!

"Like it?" Keith's head popped out of nowhere behind her. 

"Like it? This is a fire hazard, Keith!" She screamed. And as if to prove her point, the sparkler hit Red in the head, and the lion went crashing to floor, along with the sparklers. Great. Now his room was on fire. "Oh shit." 

She glared at him. "Don't just stand there! Get Coran!"

Eventually they tamed the fire, but Allura banned Keith from touching Red any time other than missions and training. 

* * *

He tried one last time two weeks later, only this one didn't even reach her yet. 

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” Lance murmured, cautiously eyeing the purple goat costume Keith had stuffed him in. 

"Me neither, but I want Pidge to laugh." 

"What's with you and making her laugh? It's obvious she can't at this moment, she's still grieving!" The other paladin threw the plastic goat head at the door. It ricocheted off the wall and tumbled to the floor.

Keith stared at the stupid head, and for some sick reason, he felt angry. "You don't get it do you?" He snapped. "You don't know what it's like to know your parent is dead. You don't know how it feels to know you'll never see them again, of course you don't! Your family is back in 

Lance stepped back, hurt."Pidge doesn't need all this stuff to make her happy, y'know." He whispered. "Just let her know you're there for her."

And with that he left, leaving Keith with a lot to think about. 

* * *

“Hey Pidge.”

”What do you want, Keith?” She sounded exhausted, and it made Keith kinda guilty to hear it. He shoved his hands into his pockets, sort of hunching over. “I-I’m sorry, Pidge.”

“For what?” 

“For everything,” he confessed. “For the crappy puns, making Red do all those circus tricks...I just, I really just wanted to see you smile. Y’know, like an actual, happy smile. Not like those ones Allura makes us have for alliance photos, because I know that’s really annoying for you since it’s stupid to force smiles over things but then again it helps other people feel better-“

He froze and looked down. Pidge had wrapped her arms around his torso, her head buried in his chest. “Just stop acting crazy.” Came the muffled response. She detached herself slightly to look him in the eyes. “Promise?” 

Keith smiled and hugged her back, mumbling into her hair, “Promise.” 

”Good.” Then they stood like that for a little while. And although he couldn’t physically see it, but he could tell she was smiling. 

**Author's Note:**

> I made a Wattpad account!  
> It's post-Season 5 minus the whole Sam subplot. Oh and Lotor. So only Shiro is-was-a clone is still intact and everything else. 
> 
> Also for the puns I just looked for the worst Voltron jokes possible on the Internet. And I don’t know why Keith is acting like he’s inhaled three pounds of LSD.  
> I really want to write a Klangst sequel to this.  
> (This is shitty but I tried to finish it immediately.)  
> Friend: Kidge, Pidgance, or Klance?  
> Me:  
> Me:  
> Me: Why not all three?  
> Friend:  
> Friend:  
> Friend: Bitch


End file.
